


Synesthesia

by irlmagicalgirl



Category: South Park
Genre: K2 - Freeform, Kenny has synesthesia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 05:44:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11269134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irlmagicalgirl/pseuds/irlmagicalgirl
Summary: And I see colors when I hear your voice,Grab your wings, they’re putting gravity on trialI see colors, I don’t hear the noise,sometimes we’re only flying for a while--Kenny has synesthesia.Kyle is writing a paper on it.Kenny is screwed.





	Synesthesia

**Author's Note:**

> This was sent to me as a prompt on tumblr @ irlmagical: K2 au where Kenny has Synesthesia. I took it because....I have synesthesia. So enjoy my first k2 fic.

_And I see colors when I hear your voice,_  
_Grab your wings, they’re putting gravity on trial_  
_I see colors, I don’t hear the noise,_  
_sometimes we’re only flying for a while_

\- _Synesthesia_ , Andrew McMahon

oOo

               I guess there are a lot of misconceptions about synesthesia. It definitely doesn’t present itself the same way in everyone that has it. Actually, that may be the only thing I _do_ know for damn sure about synesthesia. I mean, I _have_ it, and it isn’t like I’m an expert or anything, because I’m always finding out new things about it. My own, at least. It’s not like I can find something out about my synesthesia, and automatically know that that’s the case for _every_ person that has it. The word _snack_ isn’t repulsive to everyone with synesthesia. Some people might think the word _snack_ looks and tastes like cotton candy. (In case you were curious, it sounds to me like someone crunching on a pickle, and leaves that taste in my mouth, too. I hate pickles, and I hate the word _snack_ ). And some people with synesthesia have no crossover between words and taste and color at all. Some people just listen to a song and see some splashes of color. I guess. I’m not entirely sure. I don’t have the kind of synesthesia where you can see rainbows or whatever when you listen to music. I feel other things, but not that. And some people just have time-space synesthesia, when time shows up like some 3D concept. I guess I have a little of that, too, but not in the same way everyone does.

               That’s my pet peeve though. People going around acting like they know all the rules to synesthesia and letting us all know that if you don’t fit into one of their little boxes, you aren’t _gold star_ enough to have it. The funny thing is that none of those assholes even _have_ synesthesia. I hate being put in a box (figuratively _and_ literally. Ever been shoved into a literal box? It’s fucking bullshit, dude. It sucks.), and I hate assholes who say that they’re experts on some mental condition that they don’t even _have_. To be honest, I didn’t even know synesthesia was a thing with a name until recently. For the longest time, I just thought that this was how everyone thought about things and saw the world. Turns out that not everyone looks at a number line and automatically sees a rainbow of characters with individual personalities. Go figure.

               So, yeah. That’s one of them that I have. Number synesthesia, or whatever the hell the “scientific term” for it is. Every number to me is a specific color and has a specific personality and relationship with the other numbers. At least numbers one through ten. It starts to repeat a bit and get muddled when you get into the double digits. But like the number one? He’s kind of a dick. And he’s a _he_. He’s bright red and thinks he’s the coolest thing in the world and better than everyone. Like Clyde. He’s an asshole. Nine was always my favorite. She’s sweet and dark green and like a big sister to everyone else. I see numbers and sometimes, they just…hang out in my head and…talk. It’s kinda hard to describe to someone who _doesn’t_ have synesthesia, I guess. Like describing the color blue to someone who was born without eyesight. I guess that’s why there’s all these people trying to describe it who don’t even know what the hell they’re talking about, but in the end, it doesn’t matter, I guess. I know how I see and understand the world, and it works for me. It doesn’t need to work for anyone else.  

               That number thing happens with some words, too. I see them as a color, or taste them. Not all of them – only words I feel strong about. Or maybe I only feel strong about those words _because_ they’re the ones I see or taste. Like _snack_. Or _gal._ You know, that stupid short word for girl? My mom says it instead of girl, usually. It’s not that I don’t like girls, just like I’d never turn down a snack. It’s just the word. Gal tastes and looks like dirt. It just does. A good example of a good word is Tanqueray. You know, like the gin? It’s not like we can even afford Tanqueray. I just like the word. It feels clean and smooth, like a crystal blue. See what I mean, about it being hard to explain? Someone without synesthesia would probably think I’m crazy. That’s why I don’t tell my mom. She’d probably say something like, “Shit, Ken, you’re makin’ it sound like you’ve got that schizophrenia!” Because, you know, she’s one of those people that doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about. It’s a totally different kind of “numbers talking in my head” thing. Not like she’d give a shit. She’d probably just try to sell my words to a news station and try to make this synesthesia thing into a cash cow, as if it were a novelty. Like that bitch who had those eight babies all at once.

               My favorite (and most complicated) part about synesthesia is _people_. It probably sounds like that thing where people say they can “read your energy.” Maybe that’s where it came from. Like that dumb song? “Amber is the color of your energy”? Maybe that dude just had synesthesia and thought he was like…a witch, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s sort of like that. Some people are just…a color. The tone of their voice, their expression, their actions. It just turns into a color, or a kind of…sensation. Maybe it even goes beyond synesthesia and into some weird Kenny thing. I don’t know. Like I said, I’m not an expert. Like…hm. Stan and Craig, for example. They’re both blue. Not the exact same kind of blue, but they’re similar enough that they’re both shades of blue. It’s cynicism and melancholy, but Craig’s is like…a navy blue. Like a _deep_ ocean, like he doesn’t want to swim out of the way he is. He’s comfortable in it. It’s just a steady, dark, deep blue. Hard, but consistent. Stan’s blue shifts a little more, I guess. He’s so weird, you know? He’s like the kind of guy that wants to “reinvent” himself all the time, but it isn’t like he’s ever really changing. The way I see it, he just goes from like…royal blue to slightly darker royal blue. Or sky blue if he’s having a particularly happy day. It’s a more optimistic kind of melancholy, if that’s even a _thing_. Hell, I probably know Stan better than he knows himself. Even when he decided that he was going to be a goth kid for a week, he was still fucking _blue_.

               That’s how most people are. Slightly varying shades of one color. And then…well, how do I say this without embarrassing the hell out of myself? I guess I just have to spit it out. Some are like rainbows. And when I say _some,_ I mean like, one in a million. For the most part, people are one way. One set color, and it pretty much doesn’t change. And then… _some_ …their actions, and their voice, and their… _everything_ are…well, they just…make _everything_ more colorful. Everything they do stands out so much that each individual thing they do has its own color. There’s just so much to it, you could paint a picture with how many colors you see in _them_. There’s just something in them, and it doesn’t matter that you’re the only one that can see them that way. In fact, maybe it’s _better_ , because no one will know that they’re worth stealing away from you.

               That’s why I’m talking about this in the first place

. Because it was just so absolutely unbelievable that Kyle Broflovski called asking for the favor he did.

               “Hey, dude,” he said over the phone. “I’m writing a research paper and I was wondering if we could, I don’t know, meet up so I could talk with you or something?”

               It was kind of a weird request. Not because of Kyle writing a paper. That kid would write research papers into an early grave. It could be the middle of summer and he’d be researching some shit for whatever the hell reason. It’d be frustrating as hell if it weren’t so damn endearing. Plus, sometimes they’re really useful.

               “What are you researching? Poor people? Rats and their natural habitats?”

               I could practically hear Kyle’s discomfort through the phone. I didn’t mean to make him uncomfortable. I never really do when it comes to my poverty or home. Usually I don’t even mention it, because it makes _me_ uncomfortable to be pitied. I guess I just couldn’t image why Kyle would need _me_ for research. And...I don’t know. It was an impulse thing to say. Fight or flight. I didn’t want Kyle coming to my house. I mean, he’s been to my house before, plenty of times, but…I don’t know. Maybe I’m just more aware. Besides, what if that _was_ what he was researching? Better to make him feel uncomfortable first than to let him think I was. I guess. That was the line of thought I let myself believe. The realest explanation probably had more to do with the fact that I don’t know how to react around Kyle ninety percent of the time, so I just blurt out the shittiest response that comes to mind. This being for reasons I’ll explain shortly, but I don’t like to accept that’s a thing a do – blurt out bullshit because my brain panics half the time I talk to Kyle – so I make up some other excuse as to why it happens.

               “Uh, no, dude, of course not. Nothing like that. I just…it’s a research paper on synesthesia and, well, you have it, don’t you?”

               My mind went a little foggy. Not exactly what I was expecting. I didn’t remember that Kyle knew about me having synesthesia. Honestly, it’s not something we all go around discussing all the time. Really, I think most people see it as just as ridiculous a claim as me saying I die all the time. I guess I see why people don’t always believe the latter so much, but still. Not a very intelligent town I live in. Of all people, Wendy’s the only other person I know for _sure_ that knows I have it. Actually, she’s the one who told me the word for it in the first place. She’s got some of the music related one.

               Anyway, it really wasn’t what I was expecting the research to be about at all, and suddenly I was nervous. More nervous than I had been when considering the fact that the research might involve Kyle asking about my living conditions. I’m kind of a piece of shit like that.

               “Yeah, sorry,” I said, shaking myself out of my stupid thoughts. “Yeah, I do. Um, sure, I’ll help you out.”

               What else could I say? Despite being antsy as hell, I had to give Kyle some credit. In a world full of answers from people who don’t know jack shit, he was going to ask actual humans with actual synesthesia some actual questions and help document the truth. It was a job I didn’t feel right not helping him with, if that indeed was what he was going for. Hell, if he got _Wendy’s_ help, too, there might be some actual damn progress in town. Maybe I could actually start telling people about how I see and react to the world. What a fucking miracle _that_ would be.

               “Oh, great! Do you want to meet at my house tonight or something?”

               Just like Kyle, to suggest to meet at his own house. Or maybe it had nothing to do with anything. It still made me feel a bit more comfortable.

               “Yeah, sure, I’ll be there around six, if that’s cool.”

               Kyle agreed and hung up, and I let out a sigh of tension I hadn’t even known I was holding.

               You see, Kyle’s one of the rainbow people. It’s why I don’t know exactly how to react to him all the time, even though the way I react to him is the most important to me. And it’s ultimately the reason that, glad as I am, I’m nervous about the idea of Kyle drilling me on subject. There’s not much I can do about it. And if he asks me about it, I’ll tell him. But it’s not like I _choose_ who shows up like a fucking patchwork of color. He just _is_ , and he’s great, and wonderful, and I don’t fucking know how to respond to it. Hell, maybe he’ll _glean_ something from the research and give me some answers. All I know is that Kyle is great, and beautiful, and unique, because he makes me see rainbows. Please, if you know a gayer way to say that, let me know. I don’t think I’ve made it fucking clear enough.

               I kind of milled around waiting for six. I really just made up a time. I do that sometimes. All the time. I just don’t really know what time is normal. Does that make sense? God, what a mess I am. It’s like…my family functions as if time isn’t…a thing. If I didn’t have to go to school and come back at the same time every day, I just would have no concept of it at all. My parents wake up and go to sleep (or pass out) whenever the hell they damn well please, and we eat when we’re starving if we have food. That could be cold food bank spaghetti-os at 2 am or a Pop-Tart at 4 pm. There’s not really, like…a “dinner time.” Even on the off chance we have enough “insert frozen item here” for us all to eat the same thing at the same time, it’s not ever really at a conventional time. I guess. I just have a weird concept of time in all things. We don’t have a functional oven or microwave either, and once, we were having a sleepover at Stan’s, and I was in charge of making the popcorn. I put it in for ten minutes, ruined it, and set the fire alarm off.

               So, honestly, I wasn’t really sure when Kyle’s family ate dinner. You’d think after all this time I would have figured it out, but I haven’t. I’m really just never aware of the time unless I have to be. Do Jews eat super early like old people or super late like Europeans? Or in the middle? I don’t even know what the middle would be. I kind of wanted to avoid their dinner altogether. I’m hungry almost all the time, but I hate charity more than I want food, and Sheila Broflovski is kind of really insane about having company. I swear to God, if I walk in during dinner time, she’ll fuss all over me and put all the attention on me (something else I really don’t care for), and tell me I’m skin and bones, which will just point out how little food I can afford, and then Gerald will ask some shit about my dad’s work (which, by the way, is generally non-existent), and then I’ll be overfed and uncomfortable in so many ways, and I’d rather just…not. Let me keep my rock star skin and bones. I make it work. I guess.

               So I headed over at six (which is orange and mellow by the way, both the time and the numerical concept) with a crazy feeling in my stomach. I never discuss my synesthesia. Certainly not with Kyle. And even though he’s one of my best friends, we rarely have instances of needing to have serious conversations alone. This one in particular was making me more nervous than I wanted to be.

               When I got to the Broflovski’s, I just walked right in. It’s probably a bad idea, but no one’s door is _ever_ knocked around here. It was just a habit that none of us ever grew out of. I always liked the color of Kyle’s house, too. The green is very warm. I mean, not in the most conventional “color wheel” sense but it makes me feel warm. I don’t think I’d have been able to just walk in if his house was, like…yellow. Regardless of how close we are. Yellow literally leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. It kind of ends up making me nauseous, and considering that fact that my nerves were already getting me to nausea, I was glad there were no other factors helping that along. Like unsavory colors.

               “Kyle? It’s me,” I called out. Normally, Sheila would have already been at my side, giving me a bone crushing hug. She could be a pain in the ass when we were growing up – well, she _still_ can be a pain – but she’s really just protective of all of us. It’s kinda nice. She acts more like a mom to me than my own, most of the time. Even if she’s being strict, it’s a breath of fresh air.

               Sheila wasn’t there. Neither was Ike, who’s usually hanging around watching Nat Geo on mute, giving his own sarcastic ass commentary. That kid is too clever for his own good.

               Kyle came down his stairs, smiling when he saw me. “Hey, dude.”

It was a clear blue smile and greeting, refreshing like water. His words were cool. Not, like…leather jacket cool. Like spearmint gum cool. Refreshing.

“Hey. Uh, where is everyone?”

“They took Ike to an Avalanche game in Denver. They think watching hockey with him lets him know that they’re supportive of his Canadian culture.”

               “…Is it?”

               “I don’t know, I don’t think Ike gives a shit what they think about his Canadian culture. He likes hockey, though, so he doesn’t say anything.”

               “I see.”

               “Anyway, that means we’re on our own for dinner. I ordered a pizza, if that’s cool.”

               “Yeah, for sure!”

               I breathed a silent sigh of relief. That was something else altogether. It was _totally_ different if Kyle was alone and invited me over and ordered _himself_ a pizza. Then it was just like we were hanging out, rather than me accidentally imposing on their family dinner. Plus, I didn’t have any weird associations with pizza. It was just pizza and I could appreciate it for what it was without my senses getting in the way. That was nice. Kyle was already going to put me into sensory overload.

               “So, this is going to be super casual, obviously. It’s not like I’m sending this research off to Harvard or anything.”

               “Why _are_ you doing it?”

               “Summer work for my AP class next year. We just need to research a condition or mental…sensation that we aren’t familiar with and I know I heard you say something about having it, and…well, I’m not familiar with it, so I thought I might ask and have some fun with it. I asked Wendy some questions the other day, since we’re going to be in the same class and we just met up to go over summer work, but…she can be so clinical with the way she describes things, it doesn’t always make a lot of sense to me. I kind of wanted it to sound a little more personal, like I was getting information from a real person, and Wendy sounds a little too much like an encyclopedia when it comes to this stuff. I didn’t want information I could have googled. I want, like…you know, a real experience.”

               “Yeah, yeah, I definitely get that….,” I said. The pizza came shortly after and we took it up to Kyle’s room.        

               “I hope you don’t mind that I’m coming to you after having talked to Wendy. I didn’t mean to make it sound like…I wanted my paper dumbed down or anything.”

               “No, it’s alright, I get it.”

               “You’re one of the smartest people I know! I just…thought you’d have the ability to be more _real_.”

               _I’ll try my best,_ I thought. Which wasn’t a lie, but I couldn’t promise that I would be able to get all of his words out cleanly.

               “I really appreciate that, actually,” I said out loud.

               “What? That I think you’re smart?”

               “No, not that. Well, yeah, that, too. But I mean the part where you want it to just sound real. Half the stuff you Google about synesthesia isn’t entirely helpful anyway. It’s usually too vague, or groups everyone into one category.”

               “And it’s not like that?”

               “Well, no, it’s not like every synesthesia is the same. I know mine and Wendy’s aren’t the same. We just both experience something that involves our senses mixing. She gets visuals when hearing music. Right?”

               “Yeah, that’s about it.”

               “See, I don’t even get that one.”

               “Huh,” Kyle said, scratching at his hair. It was neater now than when we were kids. Still curly as all hell, of course, but it’s not as long as it used to be. Probably got sick of spending so much on shampoo. “Well, here, let me queue up something for us to watch, and then you can tell me more.”

               I grabbed a pizza slice while he grabbed his laptop. I don’t know why he made it sound like he was going to pick something at random for us to watch. We only ever watch How I Met Your Mother or Friends. In fact, I associate those shows with Kyle’s house so much, that I see green and smell his cologne when someone talks about them. Even just the word _friends_ , without referencing the show, gives me those sensations. I wondered if I should tell him those details.

               Kyle turned around to look at me. “Hey…you okay, dude?”

               “What? Yeah, why?”

               “You aren’t eating. And you’re red.”

               My pizza was still in my lap, untouched. So he got me there. But red? What, was he starting to see colors in people too?

               “…Red?”

               “Yeah, your cheeks.”

               _Oh. Shit. He’s being literal._

               My hand came up to my face. It _was_ a bit warm. Damn. I was loosing my calm and collected swagger. Whatever was left of it. Whatever of it there was that I ever had. He hadn’t even asked me anything yet.

               “Yeah, I’m fine. I just…I’ve never been interviewed before.”

               Well, that _was_ true anyway.

               “Oh! Well, that’s okay! I was being serious. It really is casual. You can just relax and…pretend we’re just like…talking. Just a good old Kenny and Kyle chat over Netflix.”

               _Yeah, that’s the real problem. I’m already starting to be at a loss when we have regular Kenny and Kyle chats over Netflix. This one has a sensitive issue._

“Okay…ready?” Kyle asked, taking a bite of pizza. I followed suit and took a bite, too, hoping to keep it down. It was a shame, since this was a perfect opportunity to just go HAM on it. I didn’t know when I was going to be able to eat this much and this freely again, and my stupid stomach had to ruin it by doing somersaults.

               “Uh…yeah, I guess. Yeah. Go for it.”

               “You said Wendy had the music thing and you don’t?”

               “Right,” I said. I went on to explain how music to me, while emotional on a nearly irrational and sometimes painful level, doesn’t show me colors the way it does to Wendy. “Music does some crazy shit to me, but…it’s not synesthesia related. That’s just me, I guess.”

               “Huh. I was under the impression that everyone with synesthesia had it that way. Actually…for a long time, I thought that’s _all_ synesthesia was.”

               “Common mistake, I noticed. It’s always listed as the number one thing or whatever when you Google it. It kind of bothers me.”

               “Do you have anything with sound then?”

               “Uh, sure. Depends. Not music, of course, I just said that…I think it’s because music is already too full to be muddled with other feelings for me. But white noise. I _hate_ the sound of people pulling chairs out. Like at a restaurant table or a desk. It’s like…the color yellow. The taste of…potato salad. Which I hate. And I hate yellow, because I associate it with awful sounds, and it smells like pickle juice, and yellow just makes me nauseous. It’s a pretty vicious loop.”

               Kyle opened his mouth, entirely unsure how to react, and then composed himself. “This is _great_ ,” he said, starting in on another slice of pizza. Kenny had him enthralled already. He wasn’t even mouthing out the lines of the Friends episode they had on, like he usually did in between talking. This was both wonderful and terrifying. “This is exactly what I needed that Wendy wasn’t giving up. She didn’t get that I wanted the real, raw feelings of it all. Do you think you could explain more about how the tastes, colors, and sounds are related? More examples, or like…how they start to intertwine?”

               “Sure,” Kenny said. “I’ve…never tried to do that before, but…I’ll give you the _real, raw_ version. Um…shouldn’t you be writing this down, or…?

               “R-right!” Kyle stammered, leaning over lazily, trying to grab his notebook off his desk without actually having to get all the way off the bed. He was orange when he did things like that. Funny Kyle quirks that went against the grain of his straight-A getting, speech-giving self. Splotching orange spots, like paint, clouding my vision. I tasted fruit. I couldn’t understand how people could be _any_ sort of color to me, aside from the color they literally were. I couldn’t understand why Kyle was so _many_ colors. It’s not really something I can Google as easily as “seeing colors when I hear music.” I don’t really know that it counts as anything. But I group it in. I see color when people speak, don’t I? And feel tastes? So how is it different from seeing color when they touch me, or move, or do _any_ sort of action? I don’t suppose it is. It’s not my job to explain it anyway. I just know that it happens. And that’s that.

               I started to get more relaxed, spilling out all I knew about my own synesthesia, and Kyle scribbled it down. I don’t know if I could eat more because my nerves were calming, or if I was calming _because_ I was eating, but suddenly I was thankful for the fucking pizza again. Back to the way things were supposed to be.

               I told him about more sounds and words – words I hated and words I loved. He thought it was funny that Tanqueray was one of the good ones, even though I explained that it was because the word was smooth like clear, blue glass, and not because I was a gin fiend. He thought it was funny that _vagabond_ was another example of a good one.

               “It’s red,” I said. “Like a deep, dark red. And the patterns of carpet…like that carpet in Aladdin, y’know? How it’s patterned like that? That’s how vagabond is.”

               “Do you know what vagabond means? Again, not a question of your intelligence.  I’m just wondering if the meaning of the word affects what you see and feel.”

               I thought. I had never used the word vagabond in a sentence before, other than to say I liked the word. I couldn’t even say for sure where I had heard it. A movie, maybe?

               “Is it like a bad guy?”

               Kyle chuckled. “Could be. Doesn’t have to be. More like someone who travels around from place to place with no home or work. Like a nomad, but I suppose it does seem to have a more negative connotation.”

               “Oh. Well, no, I don’t think that affects it. I mean, I hate the word _gal_ ,” I said, explaining how it made me feel and how my mom uses it more than necessary. “I don’t hate…girls. I can’t even say the other word again without tasting mud in my mouth…I just don’t like it. I don’t know what to say. And it’s weird. Some red things are not the same as others.”

               “Oh? How do you mean?” Kyle readied his pencil, expecting something especially valuable to come up now.

               “So, vagabond is red, like deep, like a cherry. It’s good. A good ass, clean red. It just makes me feel good, I don’t know what else to say. Vagabond has good…character.”

               Kyle chuckled again, perhaps not totally understanding, but I guess appreciating the way I was describing the sensation.

               “But, like, take the number 1,” I continued. “The actual, Arabic number 1. Not the English word, _one_ , _o-n-e_. Just the number. It’s also red –,”

               “There’s a difference?” Kyle asked. “Between the word _one_ and the number 1?”

               “Well…yeah. The number is…a concept. The word is still a word.”

               Kyle smirked.

               “What?” I asked.

               “Nothing. This just makes you sound like kind of a genius. That’s all.”

               “Really? Why? It’s just…a thing I have about me.”

               “Nah, not the fact that you have synesthesia. Just the way you articulate it.”

               “Oh…thanks,” I said, feeling myself get a little warm. Luckily, Kyle was just turning to click on the next episode. Blue. Kyle, leaning over his laptop, tip of the tongue peaking from the corner of his mouth, was a soft, fuzzy blue. Not fuzzy like a duck. Fuzzy like a broken tv in a dark room. It was comforting. But that didn’t mean jack shit. Because all of Kyle’s colors were comforting.

               “So,” I swallowed. “So the number 1 – the concept – is red. But I hate that bastard.”

               Kyle actually laughed out loud. “ _What?_ ”

               I sighed before launching into my spiel about the numbers and their personalities and how I visualize the number line. I swallowed roughly before telling him that I also end up having stunted conversations with the numbers, too.

               “That…is _incredible._ That’s seriously, like, genius shit.”

               “It’s not, though,” I said. “It’s not like I’m better at doing math because the number 8 is dark purple. It’s still an 8. I just…process it differently, probably. I guess.”

               “Being a genius doesn’t have to mean that you’re just…good at math. It’s just that…I don’t know. Your mind works differently than other people. And the way you…talk about it. That’s kind of genius.”

               “It’s only different from people who _don’t_ have number synesthesia. I’m just like all of them.”

               “And there is more than one genius in the world. But even out of the people who _do_ see numbers in color, I bet it’s not the same colors you see. I bet not all of them see them with the same personality or any at all. And I bet _no one_ describes it like you.”

               “…Maybe,” I said. I just didn’t want to dig myself deeper. It was hard enough trying to keep up the humility without combusting anyway.

               “So – what else is red?” Kyle asked. “Besides vagabond and the bastard number 1?”

               “Your mom,” I said.

               Kyle appeared taken aback. “Well, that was…a little uncalled for.”

               I couldn’t help laugh, in spite of it all. “No, no, dude. Sorry, I didn’t mean – I mean, _your mother_ literally is red.”

               “That’s…a thing?” Kyle asked. “It…affects people, too?”

               Well, here it was. I painted myself into a corner. I guess, on some level, I knew it was going to come to this. It wasn’t like I could justifiably leave out the most…intriguing part of it all. Not if Kyle was writing God’s work. Something I always wanted to see produced but couldn’t write well enough to produce myself. I guess, then, on that same level…I _wanted_ it to come to this. I couldn’t deny that I kind of did always want Kyle to know how I saw _people_ compared to how I saw _him._ Wasn’t it…wasn’t it only _fair_ that he know how beautiful he was? Why should I be allowed to keep that from him just because I had some bullshit feelings? My feelings never counted for much, I guess. So here it was.

               “Yeah. It affects people. And…that actually…probably interferes with my life the most.”

               Kyle chewed on the end of his pen. “Oh? Well, that’s interesting to hear. The others don’t…interfere?”

               “I guess not unless it’s super awful. An unpleasant noise for some means nausea and feelings of irrational anger and violence for me. Otherwise, it mostly all just…enhances life. But the people thing…yeah, that’ll mess with you. I mean, it _does_. It messes with me. And affects how I react – or _can’t_ react to people.”

               “I…see,” Kyle said, now more invested than ever. “So…my mom’s red. What…what does that mean, exactly?”

               “I…well, it’s her voice. Her…body wrecking hugs.”

               Kyle nodded like he knew what I was talking about and gestured for me to go on.

               “Her…the way she stirs in front of a pot of food. Her…I don’t know. Shes just…red. I’ve never had to say _why_ before.”

               Kyle looked at me like he was expecting me to keep going. My heart was pounding hard against my Adam’s apple in an almost painful way. I explained about Stan and Craig and their blues and I knew Kyle didn’t really, truly understand (because who could? You can’t make someone perfectly see what they’ve never seen and never will), but he was completely attentive and nodding along like he could at least see where the colors _related_ , even if he couldn’t literally _see_ them.

               I told him how I saw practically everyone in the town. Butters was teal. Cartman was intensely olive green. That was…a complex one. But still just one color. Wendy was white. That one was also strange, but there it was.

               Kyle had become dangerous. His chin was resting in his hand, his eyes looking up at me through long red eyelashes. The episode we were on ended and he didn’t turn to click on the next episode. I cursed the fact that autoplay wasn’t helping break the silence. He was pink. A sunset. A buttfucking sunset that I wanted to die in, God damn it all, and I knew what was coming next.

               “What…what color am I?” Kyle asked cautiously.

               My mouth filled with cotton.

               “Is it…is it bad? You…you don’t have to tell me,” he said. “If...you don’t want.”

               He started to shift upwards uncomfortably, disenchanted by the fact that I might see him like an ugly color. And the idea of that made my organs fall and crash harder than the idea of telling him otherwise. Faster than my brain could think, my hand shot out and grabbed his, keeping him from pulling away any faster. He was clearly startled, eyes wide.

               “Kenny, what is it?” he asked worriedly. I felt kinda awful. He wasn’t even thinking I was going to reassure him about the way I saw him.

               “You…I…” _Fuck_ , this was hard. I’d always been so paranoid about having to do this, that I never…thought about how I would do it.

               “Are you okay?”

               “I’m fine,” I said and, afraid I had snapped, said it again. “I’m fine. I just…Kyle, I have to tell you something.”

               “Dude, you’re scaring me…”

               “No! Don’t be scared. I’m already…scared enough. Just, um…well, get comfortable again.”

               Cautiously, Kyle did so. I think I had actually scared him enough that he was just afraid _not_ to do what I was asking.

               “Um, so, what have you written so far? I mean, just regarding how I…see people, and stuff.”

               Kyle picked up his notebook slowly. “Uh, just some notes about how people can make you see a color or some kind of sensation…but no names. Some examples. I have…here: _Example one, woman is red. Sound of her voice and actions trigger specific shade of red and associated feelings._ It’s…going to be more detailed in the paper. I’m…not going to mention any names though.”    

               “That’s…that’s good,” I said, hardly even hearing the actual notes that Kyle had written down. “Well, if…if it’s okay with you, it’d be really great if you _don’t_ put this next part in the paper. Um…off the record, as they say.”

               Kyle’s eyebrows furrowed. “S-sure…I won’t put anything in that you aren’t…comfortable with. Um…so, what is it?”

               I took a deep breath to the sound of a drum roll in my head. “You…are…a rainbow.”

               Kyle’s eyebrows remained furrowed. What was a _huge_ thing for me to say only really just seemed to…confuse him. Suppose I should have seen it coming.

               “Sorry?” he said. “I don’t understand.”

               I rubbed the back of my neck. What else could I say?

               “Kyle. You…you’re a rainbow. You’re all the colors.”

               “Oh. Does…that not happen a lot or…?”

               I bit my lip and looked down, shaking my head. “N-no. You’re…the only one actually. That I’ve ever met.”

               “Oh,” he said again. I almost wished he’d stop saying that. “What…does that mean?”

               I kept my head down. I wasn’t sure I could look at him when I said this.

               “It means…Kyle, it means that you’re…more unique than anyone I’ve ever met. You’re vibrant. Everything you do is a living color, and a different one. Just since sitting here, you’ve been warm orange, and a calm blue, and…pink. Like…a sunset. The way you blink slowly, when you’re thinking, is a pastel green. The way you blink fast, when you’re angry, is like…the color of fire. But it excites me, because you do great things when you’re angry, actually. The feel of your hand when I grabbed it right now…was like…lavender. And out of all of those colors, there isn’t a single bad one. I don’t…know why I see people in color and why I see you like this, but I’ve stopped trying to figure that out because it doesn’t matter, and I…just can’t help it. That’s how it is and how it’s always been. And _that’s_ how it interferes with my life. Because it’s forced you to be my favorite person, but every time I see you, I see _new_ colors and I hardly know how to exist around you anymore without just…I don’t know. It just wasn’t fair that I had to keep relearning how to be around you like a normal friend when you didn’t even realize how…fucking beautiful you are. It’s just not –,”

               And before I could finish my sentence (and, truthfully, I’m not even sure how I was going to end it), Kyle’s lips were pressed against mine.

               In any other lifetime, I’m sure it would have triggered a stream of frantic curse words in my head, but a flood of color and taste and kaleidoscopic imagery overtook me instead. His lips were soft, as I knew they would be – the kid has the strangest thing with Chapstick, which I now praise. He was wintergreen, and tasted like a waterfall. Cool, cleansing, rejuvenating. Nothing mattered from before. My nerves didn’t exist. It was like I was being baptized, and Kyle was my priest, and his lips were the water. Was that sacrilegious? I couldn’t tell. This existed on a different plane. At the same time, he was was white. Not like the starkness of Wendy. White like a cloud – like sweet cream that I couldn’t stop drinking, but still as cleansing as all else.

               He pulled away before I was ready to stop tasting – though truthfully, I don’t think I was ever going to be ready to stop. I could hear his heart beating when he was still close enough for me to be able to. It was dark blue, like the waves ebbing and flowing.

               Neither one of us spoke. What could you say after that? Who was supposed to speak? We stared at each other for a few seconds, though it felt like _years_.

               “…Fuck,” I said. It was the most appropriate thing to say.

               Kyle licked his lips slowly. God, I wish he would just… _not_ do that if he didn’t want me to kiss him again. I have this…oral fixation…kink…thing, and paired with his…colors…it was turning me into more of a mess than I already was.

               “I…yeah,” Kyle nodded. “I…well. It’s only fair…to say…I wanted to do that for a while. I mean, I don’t see you as a rainbow. Not that I didn’t want to or anything. I just can’t. But it doesn’t mean I wanted to do that any less. I just...didn’t know if you were…”

               “Gay?” 

               “Or bi, or you know, whatever.”

               “I don’t know what I am,” I said honestly. “I don’t care. I never had to think about it. I like what’s and whoever’s beautiful, and how can a rainbow _not_ be the most beautiful thing? If that makes me gay, that’s okay, but I’m not that interested in other men. Or women. Just what’s beautiful to me. And…that’s you.”

               Kyle breathed heavily and grabbed onto my collar. “I think…if I kissed you again, I wouldn’t stop.”

               “I…don’t know that I could either,” I said. Kyle didn’t kiss me again yet, which I was almost glad of. I hadn’t recovered from the last one yet. “It…the kiss…showed me new colors.”

               “Oh. Could you…tell me about them?”

               I smiled at him. I couldn’t have imagined this. I never actually saw an end where Kyle was understanding. I always just…knew I had to tell him that he was beautiful in the eyes of someone like me, because he deserved to know, but there was never anything after that. But there was. There had been the whole time. There was this. I described to him exactly how his kiss looked and tasted.

               He shook his head slowly.

               “You _are_ a genius.”

               “I’m _not,_ Kyle. I’m really not. I don’t know why you keep saying that. It’s not genius to see things that way. It’s just how I see.”

               “I know. But, again, it’s the way you arrange it. Anyone could have synesthesia…but not anyone could put it into words that way.”

               I still couldn’t accept that, but maybe that was _his_ way of seeing me in color. I cautiously put my hand on his cheek.

               “Your interview…was definitely better than Wendy’s,” he whispered shakily, centimeters from my face. I smiled, harder than I could remember smiling in long time, until my cheeks hurt, and I closed the gap between us to see if I could be baptized once more.

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. If you were the one that suggested this, please let me know it was you bc I lost your url like the asshole I am.
> 
> 2\. I do have synesthesia and this is 100% based on my own experiences. I mean, I've never kissed someone named Kyle. But I hate the word gal and love the word Tanqueray for those reasons. I see people in color and this is the best I can explain it. I have strong number synesthesia and 1 really is an asshole. Kenny's thoughts and experiences are my own - I just don't talk like Kenny. But I wanted it as authentic as possible, just like Kyle wanted an aesthetic paper.
> 
> 3\. I have LOTS more SP fics planned. My next one will be a 10 ch Crenny Sugar Daddy fic for the Crenny Big Bang, so look out for that. I'm also planning other Bunny and K2 oneshots, so look out for those, too. Or let me know if you have one shot prompts bc they're great. Okay bye thank you.


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